Burke Devised Ghost Scam, Lawyer Says

A lawyer for former Ald. Joseph Martinez contended on the eve of his client's sentencing as a ghost payroller that Ald. Edward Burke (14th) had been in "complete" charge of the scheme.

The allegation against Burke, the chairman of the Chicago City Council's Finance Committee, came in a federal court filing Tuesday that contended Martinez played a minimal role in planning the pay-for-no-work scam.

"So complete was Burke's control over the scheme that, except for a five-month period, Martinez's checks were delivered to him by Burke's secretary," defense attorney Rick Halprin said in the filing.

Last January, Martinez, an attorney, pleaded guilty to fraud and admitted he was a ghost payroller on the Finance Committee while he was working full time for Burke in the alderman's private law firm.

At the time of the guilty plea, Martinez's then-lawyer alleged that Burke gave Martinez the ghost position so the city would pick up the cost of health insurance coverage that the law firm did not offer its employees.

Martinez collected more than $90,000 in wages and benefits over a 6 1/2-year period despite doing no work on the Finance Committee or on two other City Council committees.

He made full restitution to the city before he pleaded guilty.

In his Tuesday filing, Halprin contended that Burke "received the greater benefit" in the ghost-payrolling scheme than even Martinez by "avoiding the cost of health insurance."

"This single fact motivated his employer (Burke) to concoct a fraud scheme in which Martinez's participation was nothing more than acquiescence and acceptance," Halprin wrote.

Martinez was on the payroll of the Finance Committee from August 1985 to May 1987, the Land Acquisition Committee from May 1987 to March 1988 and the Traffic Committee from May 1988 to April 1992.

In the three-year federal probe of ghost payrolling in City Hall, dubbed Operation Haunted Hall, two others in addition to Martinez have been charged with being ghosts on Burke's Finance Committee.

And prosecutors accused a fourth person of being a Finance Committee ghost at his sentencing on separate tax charges.

Martinez, who was an alderman for 1 1/2 years in the early 1980s, is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo.

Burke, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing in the probe, his attorneys and lawyers for the Finance Committee did not return telephone calls Tuesday seeking comment on the allegations by Halprin.

The defense is expected to seek probation, while Assistant U.S. Atty. Kaarina Salovaara said she will ask that Martinez be incarcerated.